A Isca

This is a real gem. Very, very well crafted and acted, L' Appat presents the naivete of three young dreamers who try to realize their goals too easy, without understanding the complications of their actions. Apart from the smooth flow of the plot, Tavernier presents a masterful character study. Not to be missed!

This 90's oeuvre of well-known French director Bertrand Tavernier is certainly one of the most impressive dramas about alienated youth in movie history. The way Nathalie and her friends (excellent performances, especially from lead actress Marie Gillain!) behave towards each other and the human beings they encounter and destroy on their long trip downhill, raises deep questions about contemporary ethics and moral values. The story, based on a true account, is depicted in a cold, almost documentary style, which makes it even more disturbing. Not for the squeamish!

8 years before Bertolucci and The Dreamers, 18 years before Coppoa (Sofia) and The Bling Ring, Tavernier demonstrates once again the modernity of the subjects chosen for his movies, with the tell of a youth without bearings - even moral - and dreaming to live the life sold by cinema, magazines and ads. Not able anymore to distinguish reality and fiction, good or bad, or recognize that acts have consequences.

We also discover Marie Gillain as an actress (it is strange to see in retrospect how few good roles she has had since) that shines over this movie. The rest of the cast does not embarass that performance and is very good as well.

This movie is also a movie where violence is shown as it is, cold, brutal, terrible. Which opposes to its magnification often seen in Hollywood movies, symbolized by different scenes in "The Bait" like the one with Scarface or in the video shop. The profit they take is all the same incriminating against violence.

To conclude, Tavernier offers us a very powerful movie, I really recommend it.

In Paris, the eighteen year-old Nathalie Magnan (Marie Gillain) works in a clothing store during the day and escorts successful men in a nightclub in the night. Nathalie lives with her boyfriend Eric (Olivier Sitruk) and his moronic friend Bruno (Bruno Putzulu) in an apartment she rents. Eric dreams on traveling to the United States with Nathalie to open their on business but his father does not finance him. Eric plots a scheme with Bruno, Nathalie and her friend Patricia (Clotilde Courau) to raise money. They should go with their costumers to their apartments and once inside the apartment, they should the door open so that they could rob the apartment. Things do not work well and Patricia decides to give up and not participate in the heists. But when their plan goes wrong, Eric and Bruno have to kill their victim.

"L'appât" is a French movie by Bertrand Tavenier that show an alienated youth in France that thinks in getting easy money despite killing their victims. The impressive story seems to be very realistic and when I saw it for the first time in the 90's, I was scared with the behavior of Nathalie, Eric and Bruno. Now the violence has increased worldwide and the impact of the murders reduces, but anyway, "L'appât" is still a great movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Isca" ("The Bait")

FRESH BAIT provides a most accurate portrayal of the feckless immorality of a certain category of youthful criminality. The film is based on the true story of three Parisian roommates; a young girl and two guys, who attempt to make a living by extorting wealthy men. The girl promises sexual favors at the rich man's home, and then the two young men arrive bent on robbery and mayhem. However, the three perpetrators' childish and uninformed moral sense overshadows, and far exceeds, the nature of their violently evil actions, and this makes the impact all the more shocking. The viewer is forced to ponder, "What were they thinking"?, and, by the end of the film, you realize that not one of the three felons had the slightest clue as to the implications of their actions. A MUST SEE.